The present invention relates to an IC card with an embedded or mounted IC and an IC card reader/writer for reading data from, and writing data into, the IC card. More particularly, the invention relates to a point of sales management system applied to an electronic wallet system using IC cards storing cash information, and to a portable terminal for the electronic wallet system.
2. Description of the Related Art
One example of a system using an IC card with a built-in microprocessor (CPU) and/or a memory is a system using IC cards for storing cash information, as described in an article of a newspaper of Japanese Economic and Industrial Newspaper Company (NIKKEI) issued on Dec. 10, 1993, and in the publications of JP-A-3-92966, JP-A-6-503913, JP-A-5-266273, JP-A-594458, and JP-A-1-231451. With this system, shopping and money transfer are possible without having a check or credit card. In buying a thing, an IC card is inserted into a reader/processor terminal at a retail shop so that a remaining money value left in the IC card is displayed. When a password (ID) is entered, the money value used for buying the thing is transferred to the terminal. The retail shop inserts its own IC card into the terminal to transfer a sales money value and deposits it on the account of a bank through an automated-teller machine (ATM). Such settlements may be performed over a telephone.
If data necessary for settlements and transactions is recorded in an IC card, data can be distributedly managed among IC cardholders and a cost effective off-line system can be realized. For example, the transactions per day are stored in the IC card of a retail shop, and a sales money value is deposited on a bank account through ATM. In this manner, retail shops and banks are not required to be interconnected on line. Bank POS service interconnecting retail shops and banks 24 hours a day is expensive. If traffic of the on-line process is concentrated during the same time period, a response may often be delayed. Some nations have high line cost and bad line conditions. Large merits can be enjoyed by off-line of IC cards.
As different from magnetic cards, it is not easy to copy and forge IC cards. However, an IC card system dealing with cash information is concerned about the following issues. IC card may be stolen from a register of a POS system, or data may be illegally stolen from IC cards.
If one register of an IC card POS system is used by a plurality of register clerks, a register clerk may illegally transfer cash information, from an IC card storing cash information of a sales money value at a retail shop, into an IC card of the register clerk. Presently, in a system in which cash is dealt and a plurality of register clerks share one register at a department or gasoline stand, robbery of cash is becoming a serious problem.
Damages by robbery of cash at stores open 24 hours a day are increasing.